


What We Believe

by Leni



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Behind the Scenes, F/M, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 09:17:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2726975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy remembers. Sort of.</p><p>  <i>The kiss under daylight, the afternoon in his bed, the tear-soaked parting (even that is beautiful, because she understands what he's sacrificing for her.)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	What We Believe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evil_Little_Dog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Little_Dog/gifts).



> Written for ELD at [Comment Fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/318622.html?thread=57386910#t57386910). Prompt: **When Buffy returns from the dead, she remembers the day that Angel erased.**.

Before her meeting with Angel, Buffy knows it couldn't have been real. The kiss under daylight, the afternoon in his bed, the tear-soaked parting (even that is beautiful, because she understands what he's sacrificing for her.).

It's Death's parting gift, Buffy thinks, when the images give her a little comfort, a little warmth. Maybe in a parallel world, there is a girl who knows beyond doubt that someone holds her life worthier than his own.. Maybe in yet another world, another girl and her ex boyfriend found a way to stay together despite it all.

Those are the good days.

On her bad days (on most days, truly), Buffy knows it's her punishment for breaking the laws of nature. She shouldn't be alive, and so she's been shown what life should truly be like. It doesn't matter that it never happened. The happiness of that day still reminds her of how dreary her life really is. Who does she love that much, that blindly, these days? Who would make the difficult choices and try to spare her? Who will change fate itself so she has a better chance?

She would have hated him - yes, even Angel - if he'd made such a decision without her. But that was then, when she still believed that being a Slayer didn't doom her, that if she fought enough and held onto her friends, she could have some sort of life. A home, a family, a lover she could rely on.

How naive she'd been.

Now she would love for someone to take the weight off her shoulders. 

Just a little. 

Just for a day. 

Or a lifetime.

(Or forever. Would forever ever work?)

But Angel won't be the one to help her. Not now. He's got his own world to carry now, she understands; does he also feel the need to share his burden? Buffy wishes him better luck than her own, and if she passingly considers offering herself for the position, she reminds herself that she's weighed down already.

Two halves don't always make a whole. Not for them.

It's still... nice... to see him. To talk to him. To hear about the friends he's made and a couple of people she once cared about - yes, she counts Wesley too.

Now Angel is telling her about Doyle, the friend he lost.

"I'm sorry," she says, wondering how they've drifted so far apart that she was never aware he was grieving a dead friend. "He seemed like a nice guy. Not to mention he had a direct in with the Powers that Be. Useful, that."

It's not until after she's said it, that Buffy realizes she's been remembering the wrong version of that visit to Angel's office. In the real world, she'd only seen this Doyle for a few minutes before she'd made her way out.

But Angel doesn't look confused at what should be a wild guess; or, assuming she's right, curious about how she found out. Buffy remembers her theory about parallel worlds, and tries to relax and focus back on their conversation.

Next it's her turn to talk about her life. She tells him about Dawn, and she's as surprised to find out that Angel remembers her little sister as he is by the fact that those memories are fake.

"So it never happened? None of it?" he asks, eyebrows risen high and with a disbelieving shake of his head. "If it wasn't you, I wouldn't believe it. It all feels too real."

Buffy thinks of the shade of his eyes under the sunlight. "I know the feeling," she mumbles, blinking the thought away. They're not that couple, kissing each other in the middle of the street because, for one mad day, they believed they'd beaten the odds.

She's never been that lucky, in this world.

How she envies that other girl. Even if that happiness had to be bargained away, Buffy thinks it would be nice to have had it at all.

With those thoughts in her mind, it almost makes sense when she blurts out, cutting Angel off as he reminisces about his first meeting with eleven-year-old Dawn "How do you know what's real?"

Now he does look confused.

"I mean. Dawn is my sister, of course she is. _Now_ she is. Does that mean that our memories of her before last year are true as well? Even if we know they never happened, can we _choose_ to make them real?"

Even as she says the words, Buffy knows the answer already. She has already chosen, after all, when it comes to her sister. Why couldn't she do the same kindness for herself? Who would know, anyway?

"I... I guess," Angel says. "They feel real enough to me."

She doesn't know she's smiling until Angel is smiling back. A true happy grin, unlike the uncertain little smiles he's been giving her tonight. "You're a good sister, Buffy," he tells her, reaching across the table for her hand, and the simple touch doesn't feel as awkward as the hand shake they'd attempted earlier. "You always were."

She nods, even though her mind is truly nowhere near sisterly affection. Neither is her heart, if she's truthful to herself.

In this world, they have never been that girl and that ex boyfriend . She has never hoped that he would return to Sunnydale and they'd build a future together. He has never given back humanity for her sake.

But they _could_ have been that couple. 

Buffy believes that as she hasn't believed in anything since she came back.

Hours later, close to dawn and already run out of conversation except for goodbyes, Buffy hesitates before saying those words. Instead, on a whim, she steps closer, goes to her tiptoes and kisses him on the mouth.

If Angel is surprised, he doesn't show it and just kisses her back.

"What's that for?" he asks when they're done, his hands lingering at her hips for a few more seconds before they lift away.

"Just a thank you," she says.

 _For reminding me I still have choices left. And that some will even make me happier, a little bit at least._.

But she doesn't tell him that, because then she'd have to explain and she doesn't want to hear him say it never happened. Such a shock of reality would be too much to allow her to cling to this vision she's been granted.

"For coming to see you?" Angel says, drawing his own conclusions. He looks as if he wants to reach for her again, but settles for caressing her cheek. "Hell on earth wouldn't have stopped me, Buffy."

Buffy nods, grateful for the sentiment, and starts her way to her car, aware he's going in the opposite direction.

She doesn't look back.

But when she closes her eyes, she sees him standing under the sun.

 

The End  
06/12/14


End file.
